Chapter 28 – Shazam Finds the Address
It hadn’t escaped Shazam’s notice that this new “find the People’s money” gig was on top of his other duties. He still had to hawk the streets for new Vs, clean up after the romps, and fix the green tea. A flunky's work never is done. He also had noticed at the beginning of the discussion something had been said about doubling his salary, but that hadn’t been mentioned at the end of the discussion, which is the point in most business negotiations where the terms are reviewed in full and formally agreed too. The ending point of this negotiation was a request by the other party for a playmate. Shazam could use the extra money, but when it came to dealing with The Aya, he knew it was better not to press his luck.
The next day The Big Guy had to go to one of the nuke sites where thousands of centrifuges were spinning twenty-four seven, refining the plutonium or uranium or cesium, or whatever special kind of rock it was, into fuel to be used exclusively to make electricity to enhance the lives of the citizens of Iran. A few years ago The Aya had been reluctant to make political appearances at the nuke sites because he wasn’t sure just how much radiation was leaking from the cores down in the bottom of the sites, and he wasn’t finished in the production of offspring department. Now, however, he was, and didn’t mind a little exposure, as long as it didn’t affect his capability to render the ultimate service to the Vs, which he considered to be part of his official duties as leader of the country. Some of the Lessers, the really strict ones, didn’t think it was part of his duties, but fuck them. He was The Big Guy, after all.
So after he left, Shazam started his hunt for the People’s money. He went to the drawer in the desk that held the booklet with the illuminated manuscript drawing on the cover, opened it, and copied down the Bank of Tehran account number. He didn’t need to copy down the password; that he could remember. He returned the booklet to the desk, picked up his hat, and wound his way out of the labyrinth that was the central compound, which took about twenty minutes. He headed down a long street that passed by sections of the university until he got to the arts building, the smallest on the campus. The engineering buildings were huge, churning out technicians and operators and mechanics, but the arts department got whatever funding was left in the bottom of the barrel. And in the hierarchy of the arts department, the drama program was the lowest of the low. Even the professors were poor, to say nothing of the aspiring thespian students. The arts department was stigmatized further by its high ratio of female to male students. In the science and engineering departments, very few female students were admitted. The arts department had almost as many female students as male, because most families held it in such low regard that they didn’t mind if their daughters enrolled in it. Shazam not only knew about the drama program, but frequented it, because this is the area of town where he scored a lot of the Vs. Not only were some of the female drama students dirt poor and willing to go to the extreme to make ends meet, but they were, wonder of wonders, good at acting, which were two of the prerequisites for being hired to service The Big Guy.
Shazam wandered from coffee house to coffee house, seeing a few people he knew or recognized, sipping an espresso here, a glass of lemon water there, until he ran into the person he was looking for. She was one of the few women who had romped with The Aya more than once, and that was a testament to her acting skill. Shazam had been desperate one time, couldn’t find a new face, and finally had asked this woman if she was willing to cut her hair short and dye it a different color. The fee would be double what he had paid her the first time. She said hell yes, and had managed to fool The Big Guy with no problem at all. Shazam was so grateful afterwards for bailing his ass out of the fire that he had spent time talking with the woman for some time.
He sat down next to her in the café and said, “Remember me?”
“I remember. How much you paying this time, and what do I have to do? No way I can play that role a third time. I’m good, but not that good.”
“Not the same deal; something completely different.” She nodded at him to continue. “You told me your boyfriend worked at a bank. Remember?” Again she nodded. “And I asked you how an actor was friends with a banker clerk, those two sensibilities generally not being in tune with each other, and you said all your friends were wild, and you needed someone calm and conservative in the significant other department to balance things out.” He paused and waited for her to say something, which she didn’t do, but just looked at him, neutrally. “Does he work at the Bank of Tehran?” She nodded, wondering where this was going, but not perturbed, her obviously being a risk taker, given her previous employment detail with Shazam. “What’s he do at the bank? Does he work with the computers?”
“Yes. All day. Boring.”
“But you like him, not being wild?”
“Boring is good sometimes.”
“Is he good with the computers?” She nodded. “Would he do me a favor with the bank’s computers?”
“How much? That could be dangerous. He’s not like me. He’s boring.”
“As much as it takes. I need to know something about an account at the bank.”
“You have the number?” He nodded. “What do you want to know about the account?”
“There was some money in the account. I want to know where the money is now, and who moved it out of that account.”
She said, “I’m not a banker, I know nothing about bank stuff, but I know that answering those questions is dangerous. So, how much?”
Shazam thought for a minute, trying to figure this out. He knew he had to offer a substantial fee, but he didn’t want to offer so much more than he had paid her for romping with The Aya the second time that it would insult her. He said, “I can make it a little more than I paid you the last time. Is that ok?”
She raised her hand to the waiter and ordered a hot meal. Then she said, “Double what you paid me the last time, and you buy this meal.”
“Done.”
“Give me the account number and the password.”
He took the paper from his pocket on which he had written the number and handed it to her. She looked at him, and he said, “The password is, umm, funny. Sort of.” She looked at him, again neutrally, and waited. There was no way around it, so he said, “It’s fortyvirginsforever, no spaces.”
At this, she broke out laughing, drawing attention from everyone in the coffee shop. When she was able to contain herself, she said, “That’s a riot. Very funny password.” She looked at him, and sobered. “You want me to get information about The Ayatollah’s account, don’t you?” Now it was his turn to look at her neutrally. She said, “The price just went up. Ten times what you paid me.”
“Done.”
She said, “You little shit,” but pulled out her cell and dialed. Her meal arrived at the table, so she talked and started on the lamb at the same time. He heard her give the account number to the person on the other end, and the password, and then she disconnected. “He’ll call back. He didn’t say anything about the password. I told you he was boring.” She ate like it was her last meal. When her phone rang ten minutes later, her plate was empty and she’d ordered another espresso. “Hey.” She listened, wrote something down on the paper Shazam had given her with the account number on it, said, “Thanks, I love you,” and hung up. She looked at the piece of paper for a minute, then pushed it across the table to him. “He said it was a special account. There’s no money in it now, and no record of how much was there in the past. That’s been wiped clean. And no record of any routing numbers to which any money had been sent. Wiped clean. He said someone who knows the bank’s computer system had been in there, because normally that information stays in the account’s record. Said this all was very unusual, but he’s boring, and didn’t ask me any questions.” She paused, then said, “But there was one piece of information that was there, going in the opposite direction as what you want to know.
All information going out of the account had been wiped clean. But there was something coming into the account. An IP address.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s the address of a specific computer. Like an ID number. And he was able to find that in the Bank’s system.”
Shazam looked at the piece of paper and saw a street address. He said, “But this is a street address.”
“That’s the address the service provider has for that IP address. That’s where that computer lives.”
Again he looked at the piece of paper, and saw it was the address of Laleh’s apartment. Laleh was very good at computers, but not perfect. She had made a mistake.